It is about time that I 'walked the talk' and represented myself online for the benefit of colleagues, prospective students, and others who might be wondering who I am and what I am up to. Here is:
Information about me -- Will Rifkin, PhD
Examples of multi-media and other publications that I have had a hand in creating
Other information about my activities, outputs, and things that I find interesting.
The logo at top left is a picture of me with two bugs made from old electronic gear by a local sculpture. I have another half-dozen of these pieces, which received the People's Choice award at Sydney's Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. A true patron of the arts, I won this collection from a raffle conducted by the charity, Save the Children.
Biography
I recently completed a ten-year 'reign' as Director of the Science Communication Program in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. I am an engineer-turned-sociologist with degrees from MIT, the University of California-Berkeley, and Stanford University.
In the 1990s, I was affiliated with a spin-off of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre (birthplace of the personal computer), the Institute for Research on Learning, in Silicon Valley. I helped to launch a postgraduate department combining organisational behaviour, information technology, and free-market economics, the Program on Social and Organizational Learning at George Mason University (home to 3 Nobel economists).
I have been recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative and effective university instructors. My research focus is communication among experts and relative non-experts and its application to learning processes in settings ranging from steel mills and public hearings to doctors’ offices and classrooms. I have published in journals such as Higher Education, Human Relations, Technology Studies, and Business and Professional Ethics.
My current work is listed below ... save for my most recent appointment. I am now the specialist in identifying and responding to potential cumulative impacts of extraction of coal seam gas. That is in the new Centre for Coal Seam Gas in the Sustainable Minerals Institute of the U of Queensland. As usual, I will be applying my focus on communication between technical and nontechnical people and the related focus on learning by individuals and collectives.
Current Work
Science and Mathematics Network of Australian University Educators -- The Australian Learning and Teaching Council has funded a project to develop leadership capabilities of university science lecturers and to establish a national network across science disciplines. This project spearheads a set of efforts that have been funded for nearly $1 million. I am on the executive team of the initiative with an appointment 2 days/week as Assoc Prof in the School of Physics at the U of Sydney. SaMnet is providing leadership development workshops around the country that support team-based, action-learning projects to improve science teaching to meet the needs of students, employers, and new Commonwealth regulation. We are working to gain synergies among education special interest groups that now exist (a) within disciplines and (b) across the sciences within some capital cities. We are supporting science lecturers to engage in scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) via new opportunities to publish case studies, so that academics who innovate in teaching can, at the same time, enhance their research records. In other words, building capacity for leadership within a school, department, or faculty as well as capacity for intellectual leadership.
Business Ethics -- The respected business ethics consultancy, Managing Values, now lists me among their providers. Principals, Attracta Lagan and Brian Moran, invited me to join based on prior collaboration through the St James Ethics Centre and my record in teaching business ethics at postgraduate and undergraduate levels. Recent clients include the agency-formerly-known-as 'Community Services NSW' and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. These engagements enable presentation on the Managing Values' insights into integrity in leadership and my work with Michael Nancarrow, PhD, on authenticity in ethics learning (which is explained in a forthcoming book chapter).
Consultancy workshops -- My research on expert-nonexpert communication is now available in a one-day workshop through Twyford Consulting -- http://www.twyfords.com.au/. This training has been certified by the International Association for Public Participation. Clients have included local councils, regional utilities, and organisations in North America, New Zealand, and across Australia. The target audience includes engineers, scientists, and planners who need to handle contentious issues involving complex technical information and heightened emotions. The workshop reveals the power of inferences drawn by one's audience, barriers to acceptance of changes and novelty, and the interplay of three key factors that influence decisionmaking -- people, process, and information.
Australian Learning and Teaching Council 'New Media for Science' project -- I am leading a team of science communication academics to put our field into the core of the university science curriculum. We are using 'new media' as a Trojan Horse, as new media engage students and are seen as increasingly relevant by academics and employers. Students who create a video, for example, to accompany a lab report will learn the scientific concepts that they are conveying more deeply. The production process for video, podcasts, blogs, and wikis (and 'new media' yet to come) will give students insights into oral and written communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and ethics. Here is a link to a journal article that describes the hypotheses being explored in the project -- http://escholarship.library.usyd.edu.au/journals/index.php/CAL/article/view/3529.
Interdisciplinarity -- Colleagues and I have a book chapter that was published in late 2010 on interdisciplinarity that involves scientific disciplines. This piece builds on five years examining biotechnology degree programs in Australia and overseas. These programs combine study in several areas of science with training in business, regulation, ethics, and intellectual property. This effort is aimed at producing insight into how best to train someone to be interdisciplinary, what 'threshold concepts' of interdisciplinarity might be, and how to run such programs in an era of tightening university budgets, work intensification, and a historical dominance by 'mode 1', single-discipline research.
Intellectual issues -- My intellectual agenda includes a focus on:
What factors contribute to an expert, or anyone, being trusted -- e.g., competence and benevolence, relevance, historical alliance -- and how these factors are rooted in how we conduct conversations. This area of interest draws on my work begun 25 years ago on the 'negotiation of expert status'.
Application of a 'learning frame' for interpreting and understanding how we cope with illness, climate change, and other significant events. For example, how might illness be viewed as an experiential learning opportunity, that is, put into a 'learning frame'? What implications does that have for the training of physicians?
Welcome
It is about time that I 'walked the talk' and represented myself online for the benefit of colleagues, prospective students, and others who might be wondering who I am and what I am up to. Here is:
Information about me -- Will Rifkin, PhD
Examples of multi-media and other publications that I have had a hand in creating
Other information about my activities, outputs, and things that I find interesting.
The logo at top left is a picture of me with two bugs made from old electronic gear by a local sculpture. I have another half-dozen of these pieces, which received the People's Choice award at Sydney's Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. A true patron of the arts, I won this collection from a raffle conducted by the charity, Save the Children.
Biography
I recently completed a ten-year 'reign' as Director of the Science Communication Program in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. I am an engineer-turned-sociologist with degrees from MIT, the University of California-Berkeley, and Stanford University.
In the 1990s, I was affiliated with a spin-off of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre (birthplace of the personal computer), the Institute for Research on Learning, in Silicon Valley. I helped to launch a postgraduate department combining organisational behaviour, information technology, and free-market economics, the Program on Social and Organizational Learning at George Mason University (home to 3 Nobel economists).
I have been recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative and effective university instructors. My research focus is communication among experts and relative non-experts and its application to learning processes in settings ranging from steel mills and public hearings to doctors’ offices and classrooms. I have published in journals such as Higher Education, Human Relations, Technology Studies, and Business and Professional Ethics.
My current work is listed below ... save for my most recent appointment. I am now the specialist in identifying and responding to potential cumulative impacts of extraction of coal seam gas. That is in the new Centre for Coal Seam Gas in the Sustainable Minerals Institute of the U of Queensland. As usual, I will be applying my focus on communication between technical and nontechnical people and the related focus on learning by individuals and collectives.
Current Work
Science and Mathematics Network of Australian University Educators -- The Australian Learning and Teaching Council has funded a project to develop leadership capabilities of university science lecturers and to establish a national network across science disciplines. This project spearheads a set of efforts that have been funded for nearly $1 million. I am on the executive team of the initiative with an appointment 2 days/week as Assoc Prof in the School of Physics at the U of Sydney. SaMnet is providing leadership development workshops around the country that support team-based, action-learning projects to improve science teaching to meet the needs of students, employers, and new Commonwealth regulation. We are working to gain synergies among education special interest groups that now exist (a) within disciplines and (b) across the sciences within some capital cities. We are supporting science lecturers to engage in scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) via new opportunities to publish case studies, so that academics who innovate in teaching can, at the same time, enhance their research records. In other words, building capacity for leadership within a school, department, or faculty as well as capacity for intellectual leadership.
Business Ethics -- The respected business ethics consultancy, Managing Values, now lists me among their providers. Principals, Attracta Lagan and Brian Moran, invited me to join based on prior collaboration through the St James Ethics Centre and my record in teaching business ethics at postgraduate and undergraduate levels. Recent clients include the agency-formerly-known-as 'Community Services NSW' and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. These engagements enable presentation on the Managing Values' insights into integrity in leadership and my work with Michael Nancarrow, PhD, on authenticity in ethics learning (which is explained in a forthcoming book chapter).
Consultancy workshops -- My research on expert-nonexpert communication is now available in a one-day workshop through Twyford Consulting -- http://www.twyfords.com.au/. This training has been certified by the International Association for Public Participation. Clients have included local councils, regional utilities, and organisations in North America, New Zealand, and across Australia. The target audience includes engineers, scientists, and planners who need to handle contentious issues involving complex technical information and heightened emotions. The workshop reveals the power of inferences drawn by one's audience, barriers to acceptance of changes and novelty, and the interplay of three key factors that influence decisionmaking -- people, process, and information.
Australian Learning and Teaching Council 'New Media for Science' project -- I am leading a team of science communication academics to put our field into the core of the university science curriculum. We are using 'new media' as a Trojan Horse, as new media engage students and are seen as increasingly relevant by academics and employers. Students who create a video, for example, to accompany a lab report will learn the scientific concepts that they are conveying more deeply. The production process for video, podcasts, blogs, and wikis (and 'new media' yet to come) will give students insights into oral and written communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and ethics. Here is a link to a journal article that describes the hypotheses being explored in the project -- http://escholarship.library.usyd.edu.au/journals/index.php/CAL/article/view/3529.
Interdisciplinarity -- Colleagues and I have a book chapter that was published in late 2010 on interdisciplinarity that involves scientific disciplines. This piece builds on five years examining biotechnology degree programs in Australia and overseas. These programs combine study in several areas of science with training in business, regulation, ethics, and intellectual property. This effort is aimed at producing insight into how best to train someone to be interdisciplinary, what 'threshold concepts' of interdisciplinarity might be, and how to run such programs in an era of tightening university budgets, work intensification, and a historical dominance by 'mode 1', single-discipline research.
Intellectual issues -- My intellectual agenda includes a focus on: